Jaguar XF. The Brand's Last Leap?

Ford purchased Jaguar for $2.5 billion in 1989 and invested more than an additional $10 billion throughout its ownership. Yet the brand never returned a profit and, with Ford's current financial situation, dictated drastic measures for its premium brand.

For the first time Ford, reports BusinessWeek, gave Jaguar designers the okay to push Jaguar's design language. Designer Ian Callum created a stylish contemporary shape, coupe like in profile, with no real traditional styling cues present.

The car is graced with a swooping coup? like profile, broad rear haunches, and a new for Jaguar horizontal grill. The interior is still elegantly executed but no longer of Jaguar's old intimate style, and even features such gimmickry as the JaguarDrive Selector. The car has been thoroughly reworked from the typical Jaguar style inside and out.

Yet the XF has received lukewarm views from the automotive world. There's no doubt that it's a revolutionary change for Jaguar, it is after all a complete departure from their norm, but is it really enough? In a world where one can choose from the elegant E-class Mercedes to the exquisitely styled CLS, or even from the oddities that are now BMW's, and where even the Japanese have style in their Lexus GS, critics feel that the Jaguar simply has not gone far enough. It has succumbed to the norm, and although previous Jaguar's may not have been considered a styling tour de force, there was no denying that it was anything but a Jag.

Ultimately it will be the consumers who decide Jaguar's fate, whether it be in the hands of Ford, or some other new owner.

Our take? The creation of the XF is a big, risky, step for Jaguar, but it may have also been a necessary one. Car enthusiast around the world can only hope that such a storied and unique marquee like Jaguar can live on, whether it's in the hands of Ford or someone else.